Dead Point (17 page)

‘My father,’ I said.

Morris studied me for at least thirty seconds, then he said, head on one side, indignant, ‘Where the hell’ve you bin?’

The mobile jerked me out of my reverie. Simone Bendsten. ‘Jack. Those directors. James Martin Toxteth is a former merchant banker. Colin Leigh Blackiston was an investment fund manager. They’re in business together in a Sydney venture-capital company called Toxteth Blackiston Private Equity. That’s about it.’

No illumination there.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Send me the bill.’

‘You’re in credit here. Buy me a glass of wine one day.’

‘That’ll be for pleasure. This is work, someone’s paying. I’ll use my credit another time.’

Back to drowsing. Should I be brave, ring Drew, find out the identity of the love object? It couldn’t be Rosa. He’d stood her up. But nobody stood Rosa up. She’d simply have driven around to his office, fronted up to him. Rich, spoilt people were like that. The phone.

‘Jack, the other day, you wanted a snap.’

Detective Sergeant Warren Bowman, he of the telegraphic eyebrows.

‘I’m grateful,’ I said.

‘Sorry I’ve been so long, mate. No luck, can’t be done. Cheers.’ Click.

After a while, I put the phone back in the cradle.

The two men in the new red Alfa. The one who gave me the video cassette was young, a mole beside his mouth, wearing a collarless black leather jacket.

Not the messengers of Warren Bowman.

I rested my forehead on the tailor’s table.

The rest of the day I spent on the half-dozen files I had open: a few letters of demand, a complaint about harassment by a landlord, a protest against an unjust parking fine. Then I did my hours and expenses for Cyril Wootton and faxed them to him.

Driving home in the early dusk, I put on the radio, caught the wheedling tones of a drive-time host called Barry Moran, a seminary flop who had joined the legion of other faith-challenged but inordinately sensitive people on radio. Barry was sensitive to the concerns of the young, the old, ordinary people, extraordinary people, the poor, the rich, the short, the tall, the middling, all religious beliefs, and the legitimate concerns of both sides in every dispute. He strove to be fair to everyone but had a tendency to be snappish with people who disagreed with his reasonable views. Unless they were powerful people, in which case his views quickly came to encompass theirs. He was saying:

…
The Development Minister Tony DiAmato joins me now. Thanks for coming on the programme, Minister. Last week you washed your hands of the Cannon Ridge controversy because the previous government awarded the tender. It’s done, it’s history, you said. Now this is a tricky one, I know, Minister, but if the tender process was corrupted, don’t you have a duty to declare the tender void and hold an inquiry?

I thought about the library-warming, my attempts to make conversation with Mike Cundall. ‘Politics of business,’ he’d said. ‘WRG wants to build a whole fucking town on the Gippsland Lakes. Get the new government in some shit over Cannon, good chance they won’t get knocked back on that.’ Now the Minister cleared his throat.

Barry, we’re talking about allegations here. We’ve had a pretty good look at the documents and we can’t find any evidence of corruption
.

Barry, ever the unctuous ex-seminarian, said:
That’s a reasonable approach. Now Minister, I’d like to put a tricky one to you. WRG Resorts says a member of the tender evaluation panel was quote placed under duress unquote. Now I wouldn’t dream of saying the name but every media person in town has heard it. Do you know who the alleged person is?

The Minister sighed, tired at the end of the day.

No, I don’t. And Barry, I’m surprised at a person like you not recognising that WRG’s on a fishing expedition. They say they’ve got evidence. Where is it? They’ve yet to approach me with it
.

Barry, nimble as ever:
Of course, it might well be a fishing expedition, Minister, as you point out. We might take a call. It’s Steven from Doncaster
.

A confident voice said:
Hi Barry, love your show. About this Cannon Ridge business, everybody knows that in opposition this government put up a pissweak resistance to the sale of Cannon Ridge. Pissweak. They let the previous government sell off part of our heritage. Why’d you reckon? Because they’re in the Cundalls’ pockets like everyone else in this town
.

Barry:
Minister?

DiAmato, weary:
Well, for a start, Anaxan has five major shareholders
…

Caller:
And one’s a Cundall. One’s all it takes. You know that
…

It went on this way. I parked beneath the trees outside the boot factory, listened for a while, went upstairs and switched on the radio in the kitchen, tuned to Linda’s station.

…
breaking up is hard to do. That’s what the old song says. But do men take it harder than women? Yes, says writer Phil Kashow in her new book, published today. It’s called Healing Your Broken Bits. I want your views on the subject. The author’s on the line from Sydney. Hello, Phil
…

I stood in the room listening to the exchange, Linda’s mildly amused tone in dealing with the publicity-hungry woman. Then, without thought, I went into the sitting room and dialled the talkback number, pressed the redial button a dozen times until I got through to the producer.

‘Hello, you are?’

‘Jack from Fitzroy.’

‘And you want to say?’

‘I’m a psychotherapist and I’d like to shed a little…’

‘Stay on the line please, Jack.’

A wait, listening to people emoting, then Linda’s voice. ‘Jack from Fitzroy’s next. What’s your view, Jack?’

‘If breaking up is hard, how much harder is making up? That’s the question I’d like to pose to Phil. And to you, Linda.’

‘Excellent point, Jack,’ said Phil. ‘No simple answer. I deal with this in chapter sixteen of my book, called “Be proud and be lonely”…’

She talked rubbish for a good while, then Linda said, quickly, ‘And insofar as that question included me, not hard at all, Jack from Fitzroy. Moving on, Phil, you say…’

I switched off, found a bottle of Cooper’s Sparkling in the back of the fridge, stood around drinking it, thinking about Linda, what the remark meant, about who would want to give me the video of Marco and why. In the way of minds, I then veered off to Sandy the bashed plunge organiser, to my sister, to a despondent survey of the clutter of my life. A life that had no pivot, no fulcrum, no axis, no…

The phone.

‘Jack Irish.’

‘I’m in the ad break.’

Linda.

‘Ad break. I’m in the life break.’

‘Where?’

‘Donelli’s?’

‘Shit,’ Linda said. ‘Doesn’t anything change?’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘Eight-thirty?’

For a Tuesday night, Donelli’s in Smith Street was crowded. It had recently been redecorated, which included knocking a large hole in the wall between the dining room and kitchen. Now it was a theatre-restaurant: diners could watch the fat
faux
Italian patron and chef, Patrick Donelly, fussing around and abusing his staff.

I’d rung to book. The patron spotted me entering and came out to escort me to my table. ‘You’re a lucky man, Irish,’ he said. ‘Two servings left of the stuffed squid braised with white wine and tomatoes.’

‘That’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Anything I don’t have to watch you both stuff and cook.’

‘The watchin’s by popular demand,’ he said. ‘Punters can’t get enough of the chef. Sex objects, that’s what we are.’

I looked at the man, torso like a wrapped fridge. ‘Speaking for myself,’ I said, ‘I’d rather have sex with the squid. Now, a decent bottle of white. Any of that little Tuscan number left?’

‘Two bottles. I was savin them for the cognoscenti.’

I patted him on the white arm, as thick and round as a fire extinguisher. ‘Well, they’re not coming tonight, Patrick. I’ll have theirs.’

‘You’ll be dinin on the bill, will ya?’ he said.

‘I think you can take that as read.’

Donelly owed me a large sum, payment for hundreds of hours of skilled labour over a messy legal matter finally resolved in his favour. Since getting actual money from the man was impossible, I’d been extracting my fee in food and drink.

Linda came in the door. Her hair was different, longer, parted in the middle. She was wearing a black raincoat and she took it off to reveal a black polo-neck and jeans. Lean and handsome, that was the same. She came over and kissed me, on the cheek, touch of silk, throat-catching hint of perfume.

‘Now this closes the circle,’ she said.

Our first social meeting had been at Donelli’s, at this table.

We sat down.

‘How can circles be circles before they’re closed?’ I said.

She smiled. ‘When I think of the years I’ve wasted wrestling with that problem.’

My desire was to take her by the hand and go home, but nothing was that simple. Except in beginnings.

‘I’ve ordered squid. Stuffed. Braised with tomatoes and white wine.’

‘Sounds good, excellent.’ She pushed her hair back. ‘Somehow, I never saw you as a talkback caller.’

‘I’ve always wanted to be. Full of potential. Just never heard a talkback host I wanted to talk to.’

We sat looking at each other, smiling, neither of us sure how to proceed.

‘How’ve you been?’ she said.

‘I’ve known better. You’re looking good.’

‘For radio, I’ll pass. You’re thinner.’

‘Worry.’

Silence again. The wine arrived. I waived the tasting ritual.

Linda sipped. ‘Nice. I heard you’d taken up with a photographer.’

She’d never been one to step around subjects. I tried the wine. Much too good for the cognoscenti. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Gavin Legge. He rang me. Trying to get publicity for a book he claims to have written.’

Legge was a journalist, a client of mine in the old days when I was practising criminal law. I’d got him off a charge of assaulting a female restaurateur. He had also introduced me to Linda.

‘The Legge is quicker than the eye,’ I said. ‘But he’s out of date. I’ve moved on. Now I’m seeing a supermodel. She’s eighteen. Stalked me, a thing for older men. What about you?’

She made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Too much bother. And there’s this internet service that home-delivers men – yourfuck dot com. It’s all a working woman needs.’

I nodded. ‘Do they take them away again?’

Linda frowned. ‘They say they’re working on that bit. Four in the garage the last time I looked.’

I laughed, she laughed, and the awkwardness was over, the long time apart contracted to nothing. I felt buoyed, light-headed. We talked about things that lay in our common ground, laughing a lot. She’d always been able to make me laugh and I’d had some success with her.

The squid was served by a small and intense young man. It was delicious. Donelly arrived, lifting Linda’s hand and bowing his head to kiss it, reverent.

‘Deeply honoured, my dear,’ he said. ‘I remember when ya first graced my establishment in the company of this ruffian. And now the whole kitchen loves ya. Station of choice while we’re preparin the finest food in this city.’

‘Thank you,’ said Linda. ‘I appreciate you saying that.’

I realised that people said things like this to her all the time. It was nothing new to her. She was a celebrity. I took the opportunity to order another bottle of the Tuscan.

‘And in the circumstances, how could I say no?’ said Donelly, shaking his head at my opportunism.

‘Exactly.’

Donelly sighed. ‘Consortin with this famous lady, Irish,’ he said. ‘How ya do it, legal extortionist that you are, defies the imagination.’

‘She sees in me what is invisible to people like yourself, Patrick,’ I said.

He went off, stopping here and there to bestow benedictions on tables of chef groupies, all eager to have sex with him.

‘I’ve been consorting with other famous people,’ I said. ‘I met Mike Cundall last week. And the beautifully preserved Ros.’

I told her about Mrs Purbrick’s library.

‘The son and heir’s in with a fast crowd,’ said Linda. ‘Comes from spending too much time in Sydney. Sam’s been trying to get out from under Mike for years but everything he touches turns to dog shit. The nasty coke habit and the gambling don’t help. Then along came Cannon Ridge.’

‘What’s the story there?’ Linda knew Melbourne.

‘The Sydney smarties put together this consortium to tender. It’s full of funny money. They brought in Sam because they reckoned the Cundall name could swing the thing. Not an unreasonable assumption. I mean, Mike Cundall used to just front up to see the last Premier, no appointment, shown straight in. And people heard him shouting at the Premier. Now that kind of thing cuts ice in Sydney.’

And Linda knew what cut ice in Sydney. She’d left Melbourne, and me, to be a current affairs television star in Sydney. That was where it all went wrong between us.

‘And he did swing it?’ I asked.

She forked up the last of her squid and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Let’s say it was swung,’ she said. ‘Noone quite knows how. WRG, the other bunch, they thought they had it stitched up. Australian company, experienced resort operators worldwide, went through the probity stuff without a hitch, pitched the tender on the high side to be sure and threw in some sweeteners. Cometh the hour, they find Anaxan has got them covered on all counts. Into shock they went.’

‘I heard Barry Moran saying everyone in the media knew the name of a tender panel member who’d been put under duress.’

Linda looked around. ‘Said to be a bloke called Rykel. A conservation bureaucrat on the panel. The whisper is that a large sum arrived in his wife’s bank account just after the winner was announced. A transfer from a numbered account at the Bank of Funafuti or some such.’

The wine arrived. Then our plates were removed.

‘According to Mike Cundall,’ I said, ‘and Mike tells me things all the time, this leak stuff is just WRG’s way of screwing the government into letting it bulldoze a large section of Gippsland. Presumably the section that houses the last known breeding ground of an endangered creature.’